Shoot Or No Shoot After Shtf?

All without pointing out something I’m wrong about? I’ve articulated every point in detail professionally. Believe it or not if I’m not correct about something I’m open to it, but you have to articulate it. What I’m getting instead is emotional responses, labeling and blanket “I’m done talking” when there is no intelligent rebuttal.

Show me a subject I have misspoke about and let me try and square it. I absolutely want to hear others opinions. But we all disagree so you are wrong isn’t a legitimate argument.

 

You don't make the rules matey but you are free to ask any question you like
No one here is obligated to answer any question you ask/demand.

You have been here a month and the only thing we have learnt from you is that you are a needy pompus pratt
Probably a struggling teacher of some sort.

 

Baseless and immature.

 

So tell us all about you please?

 

Some people here I have talked to about myself privately. They weren’t hostile or demanding. I speak on subjects I feel I know something about based on experience and training. If I don’t know about a subject I try and listen more than I comment. That’s enough information about me.

If you believe my thoughts are invalid I am not going to sell my ideas with a resume. But if I think something is true I will state that as such, with every effort to articulate why.

We don’t know each other, so I suppose continue to make wild generalizations and assumptions. However in all truthfulness it’s coming off as entertainment to me. And I would rather dispense of it, so meaningful conversation could occur.

As for my real demeanor I’m actually very forgiving and easy to get along with, although I’m nobodies punching bad. I’m also quick to say I’m sorry. So it may not be the worlds best appology but I am sorry there is conflict between us. I like to maintain a peaceful vibe.

 

I'm someone that likes to laugh and whenever I travel I like to enjoy the misconceptions that come with the expectations people have about people from Texas. I wear my cowboy boots and hat and play it up. I used to have a friend from Boston that did the same thing with what people think of people from Boston. I would throw out Y'all and he would toss out Youse-guys.

My age and the place that I was raised made me and most people that I know very straight forward both in our speech and actions. I had a friend from New Jersey that had a tough time learning that you don't get in someones face here and start screaming at them. He was shocked that he got punched in the face and that everyone was "Well what did you expect was going to happen???" Even before the new laws many of us have carried guns most of our adult life. If you get in an argument with someone you need to keep that possibility in mind. Don't get too close to them and don't make threats.

If I draw my gun I am assuming that you are going to hurt me or mine. I'm going to stop that threat. If you are dead you are not a threat.

I have shocked a lot of yanks. I understand that they live in a different world with different rules. If you act an ass I'm going to call you on it. I think that when you pile too many people into too small of a space they have to adapt to that. They seem to not pay much attention to manners or what they say and scream a lot without much action. I see this tendency in Houston somewhat when I can't avoid going there. Despite my nature, I seem to sort of attract a lot of good friends from all over the place.

EACH person will have to deal with what they can live with if they ever have to draw their guns. I'm just simple. I am not going to draw until it is the only way out of the problem. When I draw it I am GOING to shoot you and if I shoot you my aim and intention is to kill you. An injured person is still a threat. If I wasn't willing to do that I wouldn't carry a gun but that is just me.

As an addendum; if tomorrow I was attacked and had to shoot someone. If they dropped the gun and fell down, but were not dead, I wouldn't finish them. They are not a threat to me any longer. If the same thing happens after a total collapse I will finish them off.

There would be no cops to come get them and no ambulances to take them to a hospital. They are a dead man if they have holes in their chest unless someone has medical training and is willing to try and nurse them back to health. That doesn't describe anyone that I know so I would offer them the same mercy I would a horse with a broken leg. I'm sorry if you find that harsh but that is the way I see it.

 

Tex I’m definitely with you that when you shoot it should be to put the round exactly where you want it to go. And the only way to reliably stop a threat is to place the round where it will medically stop someone. Ideally instantly but if not at least start the time clock ticking down resulting in death.

 

Shoot or don't shoot

Too often in life, one's decisions are made for them.

 

“Need to shoot” situations do occur. No disagreement there. However often it is far from that simple. The answer often isn’t obvious, it becomes a moral decision, and you find yourself in a “Should I shoot” situations.

Waiting for “need to shoot” circumstances is an unnecessary self imposed handicap, which could just as easily result in being unnecessarily injured and or killed.

This is where sweating the details and riding the horse until it falls, beating it, shooting it in the head, reviving it and riding it again, is the level of detail you want to put into solving the puzzle of how and when to reach a shoot decision.

This is the primary point of my original post. People feel they are mentally prepared but when it happens they were not mentally prepared to solve the real problem, although in theory they are ready to shoot. They just can’t make it happen on game day, because that day it isn’t theoretical.

 

Maybe I was raised in a different kind of family or whatever. Normal economy/behavior or felonious ways, whatever worked worked. I have no feelings for most people. They are friendly things or things that represent a threat. People got dead in the world of my upbringing. Animals died. People died. No one wrung their hands. I was going to kill or at least mutilate someone at age 16, but it turned out not to be a thief, so I went back to bed and fell right back to sleep. No adrenaline. No feelings. Got a pat on my back from my dad the next day.

Loading a gun and walking to the door -- maybe to shoot somebody? -- raises my heartbeat very little. Several of my friends would not let me drive with them in the car, for I do not fear death. And it shows. Come up against me or mine and you'll find yourself dead. I will have given zero thought to it. I will feel zero guilt. I may fear being caught and denied my freedom. I fear being put into a situation wherein I'd not be able to support my family. But the fear of death, no. My death, their death, I am hollow in this regard.

There are oceans of people just like me.

 

When you are stressed is not a good time for making a lot of decisions. I've had a gun in my face a couple of times and you need to know exactly what you are going to do ahead of time. I try to train for simple one decision reflex type actions. The two times that I have had a gun in my face the person holding the gun was wearing a badge. I FROZE. I then opened my hands wide and slowly moved my arms away from my body before I said anything.

I learned to lock the door behind me when I entered my church in the middle of the night (2 am). I was on the Board of Directors and chairman of building and grounds and often would go in. light the candles on the altar and sit for a while. I heard the doors open and went to see what it was and sort of accidentally walked up on a couple of very nervous officers. With no light except the candles on the altar behind me, I must have looked huge to them because they both drew down on me.

The second time was also at the church in the middle of the night. There was a van parked in the driveway. I stupidly walked up and knocked on the driver's side window to ask then what they were doing. It was a van full of cops staging to raid a house a half block down and across the street. they didn't see me coming. I was walking in the dark. they didn't react well to my knock on the window.

In both cases, it had a basic program where all the decisions came down to a yes/ no fight or freeze answer. For me, a flight has just never been an option for me. I'm way to big to fly so that thought never occurs to me. I have tried to imagine every possible situation and break it down to simple solutions and then train my response to as near a simple reflex action as possible. My decision to respect a cops place in our culture may someday bite me in the butt. In general, though I don't think you will win many battles with a cop so I won't try.

If you are not a cop and point a gun at me I will probably dodge, draw and shoot you. I'm moving and you are not. I have almost inhuman reaction speed and have fired hundreds if not thousands of rounds from this position at stationary targets while I draw, dodge and fire. I'm willing to bet that I can do this and make a lethal hit on you before you can adjust your aim, decide to fire and then do it.

I am not the sort of person that is all that likely to have this problem. I don't go to bars. If someone gets loud and acts like an ass I am probably going to leave. I can't be a grey man but I try not to project an aggressive demeanor.

In my many years carrying guns, I have only pointed a gun at one person. That silly fool took a shot at me with a shotgun loaded with birdshot and said he thought I was a freaking squirrel. He was probably 60 to 80 yards away from me so I returned fire. In winter coats, #6 shot at 60 yards isn't very dangerous. It happens when you are duck hunting all the time.

 

In response to the thread starter post, I personally have never shot anyone and hope I never have to, but my personal WROL/SHTF (which I would define generally as societal collapse and a complete breakdown of law and order) rules for the use of lethal force do have far less requirements than in normal times. I'd state first that, in my opinion, each person will have a greater responsibility to not be seen as a threat to others, and I'd expect most will acknowledge that and act accordingly if that time comes. Some petty disputes like trespassing, drunk and disorderly conduct, or just rudeness (like leering/catcalling someone's wife or daughter) could escalate quickly after all - if the SHTF then idiots and assholes need to be aware of that, because the law protects them now whether they realize it or not. So with that said, and given the obvious "shoot" scenarios (self defense or in the defense of others), one drastically lowered requirement I have is that "Looters and thieves should be shot when caught in the act (if you can do so safely)", because that will restore order faster then anything else. I doubt I'd bury or hide the body, wrapped in a tarp and thrown in a nearby ditch with a "looter" sign hung around their neck seems like a better deterrent to others. Once a few looters are shot crime is going to go down pretty quickly I'd imagine.

Beyond that, I do have some common sense rules which I will be following and will be expecting others to as well. While someone breaking one of them doesn't automatically make it a "shoot" situation for us, they're red flags that would factor into the decision made at the time.

- "A dusk til dawn curfew is in effect, only travel after dark in extreme emergency", because this order is always given by the authorities even for relatively minor disasters, or at least it is here in the US. Even if the event happened so suddenly that the curfew couldn't be announced, it IS in effect because it's ALWAYS put into effect in any disaster until the disaster is over and order has been restored.

- "Don't enter another person's property without their permission", it's just common sense that all private property should be considered a No Trespassing zone unless you've been invited by the owner, or it's posted that people may freely enter. Not all properties that look empty will be, some people may just want to lay low and avoid contact.

- "Your property, your rules - My property, my rules". If you don't like someone else's rules, then don't enter their property. If you're invited to enter, and then learn of a rule you don't like, then leave immediately and without argument.

- "An armed society is a polite society for a reason, so please be polite to everyone you meet". Just basic civility, and thank you in advance.

- "No one is special or gets an exception, so don't do anything that would violate your own 'red flag' rules when dealing with others". This rule is kind of a catch-all, but I see it as applying the "reasonable person" standard that courts use when evaluating the actions of others. Don't take any actions yourself that another reasonable person would see as potentially threatening. Just as a side note, I see a lot of double standards suggested in prepper/survivalist blogs and forums, like "we will have overwatch at our home to guard against raider scouts or snipers that may be hiding nearby", and in another post, "we
will go out on patrol and hide in the shadows/bushes/weeds and scout the surrounding area with optics looking for raiding parties". Just an example, it's usually not that blatant but some do seem to have one set of rules for themselves and another set they'll apply to others.

As for dealing with the repercussions, well, mistakes are bound to happen. Have cash and PMs to pay restitution to widows and their children, pay bail bond, and/or pay fees or fines (or bribes) as necessary to the current police authority or the judge. If history is any lesson then these sorts or arrangements are common in societal collapse, and maybe much like today you often only get the amount of justice that you can afford. On vengeance from their family or friends, just have to deal with that if it happens but it doesn't change the here and now of the shoot/don't shoot decision for me. Hope this doesn't sound like I'm trying to be a badass or anything, just a passionate subject for me that I've given a lot of thought to.

 

Profound statement. And this is one major point of friction, because nobody will want to be put at the slightest tactical disadvantage.

And this goes back to my original post that to survive you can’t be casual about your decision making. Rather it will take a much higher degree of professionalism and accuracy to make good decisions about people.

To live you might actually have to put yourself at a reasonable tactical disadvantage, instead of jumping to conclusions too early. I mentioned in another thread about how if living is your highest priority it can be a liability. It can make you stupid and blind to certain risks.

Now the casual reader will think that this will put them more at risk, and it might. It might even result in your death. However getting into unessary conflict is a bigger risk in my estimation.

However a key point to remember is that if you aren’t casual about such big decisions with big consequences, then you engage in conversations like this instead of disengaging from them. You “what if” things, and you really dig in and learn the minute details in shoot no shoot decisions making.

Ironically if a high level of professionalism is reached, you will probably more accurately identify a real threat and shoot long before someone who is casual in their thinking will. Because you will be prepared, confident and accurate.

Great post above!

 

If you have to shoot post SHTF, feed your pigs and shut up about it.

 

Most people don't want to just go out and kill people. There are times when things we don't want or like to do have to be done. Especially post SHTF, if you are a threat to me or mine, I will shoot you dead and feed your remains to the pigs.

 

Hawgs do not shun "mystery meat".

 

Turn about is fair play, I say.

 

Don’t think I’m implying that aggressively taking out a threat isn’t an option to be selected.